Pretty in pink? Patrol car gets unwelcome paint job

Under different circumstances, you could say Salt Lake County deputy sheriff Joe Studstrup had a rosy morning.

After checking in on duty at 5:50 a.m. Monday, he walked out of his house to find someone had painted his patrol car pink, according to a police report Studstrup filed.The deputy said he parked the patrol car in the driveway about 10 p.m. the night before. But sometime between then and the time Studstrup stepped out for work, someone "poured two gallon containers of pink paint on the patrol car," the report states.

"It appeared that the paint was smeared with a rag or a paint roller, completely covering the patrol car," Studstrup said in the report. Paint was also poured onto the cement driveway.

The car was undriveable because "all windows had been completely painted with pink paint," the report said.

After the car was towed to the Salt Lake County Roads and Bridges center for repair, Studstrup found two open one-gallon containers of pink Dutch Boy paint in a neighbor's garbage can east of his house.

A $5,000 arrest warrant was issued for a 34-year-old man, who has been charged in 3rd District Court with damaging a jail, a third-degree felony. The two men are acquaintances and have an ongoing dispute that is directly tied to Studstrup's employment as a deputy, Salt Lake County Sheriff's Sgt. Jim Potter said.

The charge of damaging a jail is applied to any place that the sheriff's office uses as a place of confinement for a prisoner, said prosecutor Vincent Meister. That would include a police department squad room, a holding cell at the county jail or a police car, Meister said.